Filed under: Bubba, baby, christmas, craft, math, mimi, reading, science, spelling, writing
I usually buy a small cheapie advent calendar for each of the girls every year. I have wanted something more permanent, but most of the nice ones that you can buy won’t hold a treat for three kids at once. Most of the ideas I saw for making one had the same problem or they just didn’t look like they would hold up to many years of use. Until I saw this idea. It looked perfect as it was completely customizable and could be made whatever size I needed. So Bubba and I set to creating them with some $1 wrapping paper that we found at Target. They turned out great and it has been a great motivator for the girls to get up and ready in the mornings.
I used a tiny kitchen curtain tension rod to hang them across the doorway off of the living room. They look really festive there and are easily accessibly to only dad or I. (Which is important because last year a certain two-year-old snuck into the advent calendars and wiped out a couple of weeks in one sitting.)
Mimi has become a reader lately. She brings home books to read to us. She sounds out every word that she finds and spells things to us incessantly. It’s so fun to watch her with this new skill. She has wanted to be able to read for a long time and has surprised us all with how quickly she has picked it up. She is the youngest in her class, so we expected it to be a slow process, but she keeps making these great bursts of progress. There are a lot of phonics games played in the car. She will instigate one by calling out, “Ok, give me a word that starts with the ‘ch’ sound,” and we all have to go around and around until we exhaust our vocabulary. Some of the family got to play a few rounds of this over Thanksgiving.
Bubba is currently studying the Ancient Aztecs, geology, writing a book report, Rosa Parks, regrouping and (x,y) coordinates in math, and is working on an embroidery project for her Secret Santa in Brownies. Between those subjects, reading, spelling and guitar, and all of the holiday baking and wrapping that we have planned, we have a full three weeks ahead of us.
Baby is… Baby. I think she has gotten sassier with the new haircut. She successfully wrote a couple of letter “A”s at preschool yesterday and was really proud of herself. She is gearing up for Christmas and is doing better at leaving the ornaments on the tree than she did last year. Within a week of putting it up last year, the tree was bare on the bottom third due to her little curious hands grabbing them every time she walked past.
Filed under: Bubba, baby, fall, girlies, halloween, holiday, math, mimi, party
We had a light school week last week as we were busy preparing for Halloween and our costume party. The girls had a blast trick-or-treating in the neighborhood and all of them wore their costumes to school or Brownie parties earlier in the week. On Saturday we had our costume party at the house. It was a very full weekend, but we had a great time with all of our friends and family. Today it was back to the grind and Bubba and I began working on graphing (x,y) coordinates.
Filed under: Bubba, art, curriculum, games, history, math, reading, science, writing
We’ve been studying the respiratory system. I’m a little disappointed because the curriculum that we’re using for science is a little too superficial for Bubba’s level. I find myself quickly scrounging for supplementary items online or in our book and DVD collection to feel that she’s getting something out of the lessons.
Our printer is broken, so we’ve been doing a lot of online math games. Bubba told me that she felt weak on her analog time-telling skills. We found a few games that dealt with that and within thirty minutes or so she was getting all of the questions correct. She needed a refresher from last year and I had no idea. I guess we have mostly digital clocks in the house because I felt like her time-telling was great. I’m glad she was able to tell me that she felt weak in an area and we were able to work on it together. She also requested that we play more games with math, so we’ve been playing cards and Yahtzee lately.
In history we’re hitting Ancient Greece. This is one of my favorite periods in history, especially coming from an art history background, so there are lots of tangents to hit. We’re gearing up to read a bunch of the Greek Myths, but I’m having a hard time putting our regular reading book aside. We’ve been reading The Mysterious Benedict Society. It has been a lot of fun for us as we guess the solutions to the different puzzles. Some of them are over Bubba’s head, but so far she has either been able to figure them out or understand them after we find the answer(s). We’re only about a fourth of the way in, though, and any of the negative reviews state that this is where it starts slowing down. I already see what they say about it needing some editing as there are a lot of passages that are unnecessary and some feel redundant, but the story has been intriguing and fun. We’ll see where it goes from here.
We’ve been doing a little handwriting because she has this block about the number 4 and the number 9. She always makes them backwards. It’s like she knows that she always writes them the wrong way so she overthinks them when she writes them and they are consistently wrong. I have to remind her to use clear and legible handwriting whenever we have written assignments. She hates taking the time to make her letters correctly. I wouldn’t mind if she used a quicker and more comfortable style of writing, but she really never mastered correct writing in the first place. You have to know the rules in order to break them. For our more structured writing lessons we’ve been discussing how to research a topic. We’ve been over the Dewey Decimal System at the library and I’ve been working with her on how to find things on the internet. We’ve also discussed the importance of making sure your sources are legitimate and that she never decides to just go Googling without her dad or I there with her.
In art we are working on shape. Bubba finished the line section two weeks ago. I like the curriculum that we draw from because there are a couple of projects that deal with the technical aspects of the element followed by a couple of really creative projects that incorporate the same element. We have a new project every Monday and then she has the week to complete it. This way she’s been able to take her time and not rush through any of them and the results are much more finished-looking pieces than when we tried to complete them all in one day.
Bubba and I finished reading the Wizard of Oz on Tuesday. It was my old copy of the book from when I was a child. I had never actually read it, though, so it was new to both of us. After we finished reading it, we borrowed the movie from a friend and watched it together. After that, Bubba prepared a list of contrasts between the book and the movie. There are so many as the book has tons of other little plots and storylines that the movie leaves out. At one point I feared the book was never going to end as we had already killed the witch and Oz had floated away without Dorothy and we still had three or four chapters to go.
Yesterday I introduced subtraction with borrowing. She caught on very quickly, but it’s easy to see that this is not her favorite activity. Bubba much prefers addition to subtraction and there was a lot of prodding on my part to get her to refocus and finish her work. (does anyone really prefer subtraction, though?)
Also, on Monday, seeing as it was the first day of autumn and all, we took a nature walk through the park and brought home a bag of fall goodies. We set up a nature table in the living room. There isn’t any blank table top space in our house, but there was a lower shelf of a plant stand that sat bare, so we used that. About five minutes after taking this photo, Baby was spinning around and knocked into the stand and scattered everything off of it. So, it doesn’t look like this any more. It looks like a pile of debris shoved on the bottom shelf of a plant stand. But the thought was there.
We also incorporated a homemade “volcano” into our history lesson. We didn’t have a good bottle to use, so we used a glass instead. There was no height acheived from the spew this way, but the kids were sufficiently impressed anyway.
Filed under: Bubba, art, baby, curriculum, guitar, history, math, music, phonics, preschool, reading, schedule, science, sewing, spelling, writing
Spelling – a list without a pretest. Bubba was struggling with the pretests last year as she’s such a perfectionist and there’s really no point in testing her on things that she hasn’t been taught yet. I almost feel like we should let our spelling instruction come naturally through our writing tasks. When I thought about that more, though, I really want the writing tasks to focus on content and structure and I don’t want to point out every misspelled word and distract from the actual writing. So, structured spelling lists it is. There are supplementing pages that are actually kind of fun and a little bit challenging, so she doesn’t HATE spelling this year. (four days per week)
Phonics – I detest this subject as I think it is super super boring. So does she. I think we’re going to nix phonics or at least skip to the few items in the book that would be instructional and useful to her. I’m going to have to look through our book a little more to weed out the busy work. (once per week, but maybe not at all.)
Science – We’re doing a unit on the human body with lots of activities thrown in. She’s also doing quite a bit of writing by logging our daily tasks and making little booklets and stuff. We’ve checked out a bunch of human body books from the library and she has been reading them with and to her little sisters and taking them in the car when we go pick up Mimi from school. The other day she was reading about the heart and we ended up having a great conversation about the relationship between the size of an animal and how quickly its heart beats. We’re planning on a trip down to the Science Museum to see the human body exhibit before it leaves next month. (twice a week)
Math – Right now we’re doing mostly review of addition and subtraction of multiple numbers. I’ve found lots of fun activities that incorporate these. I’m going to work with her on a sewing project to work on our measuring skills (and estimating skills, as I am a laaaaazy sewer). We’ve also done some cooking and we practice our fractions. I expect that the cooking will increase as the holiday season gets nearer and we’ll do a lot of practical math like doubling recipes and figuring out the metric system and equivalencies. She really wants to move on in math and get to multiplication and stuff, but I am feeling that we should ease back into the subject. (three times per week)
History – We tried to do an entire year of history over the summer, but burned out on it. We got about a third of the way through it before we shelved it until the school year. We are still in ancient history, but Bubba loves it. She really gets into most of the stories and we have some fun discussions after reading them. It is always amazing to me the details and names she remembers after reading. There are some that I have to go back and look up that she rattles off really quickly. This is one of our favorite subjects as we always learn something new and there is always some sort of fun project to go with it and reinforce the lesson. (twice a week)
Writing – Most of our writing is done within our other subjects as Bubba balks at having to sit down and write just for the sake of writing. One day per week we do do some sort of writing task. Lately we have been working on different brainstorming techniques. At first she was lazy and bored with it until she ended up coming up with a really fun and creative story based on some of her brainstorming. Every Friday is poetry day and we do something different. Last week we had a book from the library about rocks (her current passion) and it was a long poem about different types. We read it and then she chose her favorite type of rock from the poem and copied out that page in her best writing. We have a book of Roald Dahl poems for tomorrow that I’m very excited about.
Reading – Every day I read a chapter of The Wizard of Oz outloud to her. When we’re finished with the book we’re going to watch the movie and compare and contrast it to the book. I think we’ll do it orally or I’ll have her write down the main points and present it to Dad or something. I’ve been thinking about all of the different books we could read and then watch the movie to compare and the options are huge. I think it will give her a better idea of how much better the books typically are, too, and promote more reading. She also reads for half an hour to herself or to her sisters outloud.
Music – She practices her guitar every day except for lesson days. She was given two new songs to practice at her last lesson. We were also informed of her first recital coming up in October. I can’t wait to watch her play in front of everyone.
Art – At the beginning of every week we start a new art project. She then has the entire week to work on it and refine it in order to have a very thoughtfully and thoroughly finished piece. The first few projects in each unit are more technical, exploring each element (line, texture, etc.). Then there are a few really creative projects that incorporate the techniques previously studied.
(On a side note, Baby started preschool today, but I haven’t had time to get the photos off of the camera yet. I’ll write about it when I have them on the computer. Suffice it to say that she had a blast and it sounds like the day went really well.)
Bubba and I started school on Tuesday. It was supposed to be on Monday, but it just didn’t happen. So far so good. I’m always amazed how a hiatus will prompt a real spurt in her abilities. I’m always thinking that we’ll have to ease back into things after a break, but somehow things have melded in her head and she comes out of the gate stronger than before. Her reading is so quick and easy now. (Although she did read quite a bit over the summer, so she didn’t have a real break from that, just no mandatory reading.) Her adding and subtracting are coming much more easily than before.
I’m excited for this year. She’s started really delving into subjects that interest her lately. Rocks are her new passion. Ever since our trip to South Dakota, she’s been quite the rock hound. We’ve been to the library a couple of times and I think we have now checked out every book they have on rocks, crystals and gems. She’s also taken the hammer to our landscaping river rocks trying to find geodes or crystals or something. I’ve had to nix that, but am impressed with her passion. We brought her back some polished agate slices from our Utah trip. When I handed them to her Monday morning she looked at me like she’d just won the lottery. It was great. What she doesn’t know is that we also brought her home a small stash of already opened geodes but are saving those for her birthday in a couple of weeks. We’re planning on a geology unit so we can incorporate this rock love, but need to start with the human body science stuff so that we can visit the human body exhibit at the science center. It’s only here through October, so it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
Filed under: Bubba, field trip, guitar, history, math, mimi, science, soccer, sports
Yesterday was designated “Put in as much of the new flooring as possible day”, so I decided to take the kiddos out of the house. We decided to go to the hands on Science Museum and spend the day there. I rounded up our friend and her boys and we set out to arrive as the museum opened. We happened to pick the day that five separate schools were taking field trips there, so there were a few chaotic areas, but for the most part we had a lovely time. There was a terrible movie that we were told was geared toward preschoolers. It was about ten minutes long and so short and void of any substance that I can’t believe someone actually took the time to create it. It ended abruptly and we just kind of looked at each other, not understanding why we had just paid two dollars per head to see it.
After that we spent a long time in the castle area. There was an interesting moment when Mimi felt the dress up clothes would fit better without her regular clothing on underneath. (Why does one of my children ALWAYS do this at a museum?) Then there was the issue of the ten minute shoe hunt to figure out where she left them. Then we moved to the toddler area where they always play with the water feature. I told them five or six times to play with it as much as they wanted, but to do their best not to get their shirts and pants all wet, as the temperature is always a little cool in there. Inevitably, they came away soaking and were later complaining about how cold they were. While I had the smaller two in the toddler area, Bubba went over to a math exhibit that explored things like measuring volume and folding paper incorporating geometry principles. She wasn’t happy to leave that area, but lunch was next, so she didn’t protest too long.
The next area was all about the flight and airplanes and animal and insects and the principles of aerodynamics that govern them. There were lots of fun hands on activities to see how these forces interact on different wing shapes. The last area held lots of examples of our local ecosystems, with many plants and animals, as well as a 12 foot tall tornado that the kids can climb up to and stick their hands in.
We were wiped out by that point and had made it through all the exhibits, so we left. We’ll be returning again next month as this exhibit was being unpacked there and we’re interested in seeing it in person. Maybe I’ll remember my camera, too, so I can put some photos up.
We had a quick ice cream stop on the way home, and then rested for a bit and looked at the flooring progress. Then it was off to Bubba’s first guitar lesson with her new instructor, Ms. J. I think she learned more in that single lesson than in all of her previous lessons with the college kid combined. I am really not exaggerating. At all. Not even a little.
In other homeschooling, we’re wrapping up on Ancient Egypt. Bubba listened to the unit, but wasn’t thoroughly engaged as we exhausted this topic about a year ago when she was interested in it. We learned plenty of new info, though, that we hadn’t read about before. We are also working on teaching Mimi how to play Crazy 8s and Uno. Mimi’s getting a stronger grasp on numbers and matching and colors and following rules, and Bubba is working on her patience and trying to keep a younger child engaged by letting her win every so often. I think it will help their relationship a lot when they can play games together without needing adult intervention.
Other than that, we’ve been outside a lot, watching the garden turn green and grow taller and taller. Soccer has proven to be lots of fun. Mimi cut her own practice short today due to her coach stepping on her hand by accident. Bubba’s team has set up a traveling match in the next town over, so it will be fun to watch them compete.
Tomorrow is Mimi’s preschool graduation. I’m likely going to cry. There will be pictures.
Today Bubba and I worked on some dictionary work. She had never used one before, but did understand what they are for. We had a worksheet with some words on it and she had to look them up and write a quick definition for them. While she understands alphabetical order and can apply it easily to a short list of words, the small print and vastness of the Webster’s dictionary slowed her down a bit. She came through, though. She was excited that she was able to accomplish something new and “grown up” like researching definitions.
We’ve been working on time trials with addition 0-9. It’s in the form of time tests. Yes, it’s pretty much repetitive memorization. Since it’s math, though, she doesn’t seem to notice. She loves doing these huge sheets full of numbers. She’s getting better. I think we’re going to bust out the flash cards as a supplement. I’m going to try to figure out a solitare version of around the world for her to play with them. That was always a fun way to work on the memorization of facts. She adds well, but is still figuring out the problem every time, so we’re going to keep working on this until it comes more naturally for her.
I think the only thing she’ll really remember about this school day, though, is that I showed her how to spell hello and boobs on a calculator. Oh well, we’ll file that one under life skills.
This being the longest break we’ve had in schooling so far, I was unsure what to expect when we started up again yesterday. Bubba seemed eager to get to work, so we just dove in. After evaluating some of her spelling in the letters she’s been writing, I decided that we would bust out the spelling book that we abandoned when we decided to forgo worksheets for a while. She spells very phonetically and just needs more structured spelling practice. I noticed over the break that the fractions work we had been doing was sinking in because she would describe things in terms of fractions naturally in conversation. She also started intuitively adding fractions in her head a few times. I was excited to see her taking those next steps just by thinking logically about what would happen if you needed 1/2 of a 1/2 C. of flour.
One of her favorite things to do are these Mind Benders.
(here’s a very basic example)
I used to do these in my SPARK class when I was in elementary school and I always loved them. So, when I found this series of books, I had to get the first one to see if she shared my love for them. She does. Do these types of activities have a specific name other than mind benders? That is a rather generic term that can apply to so many different activities and I’d like to find more of these for her. She is blowing through the book and I need to order the next one for her. What really amazed me is that she had been struggling the week before the break with some of them because they were getting a little harder. It appears that having those weeks off allowed these harder logic puzzles to stew in her mind and congeal in a way that makes sense to her because she was ripping through them.
We have a new big writing project, but it’s late so I’ll write about it next time.
Here’s an outtake from our home photo shoot for this year’s Christmas card. It took four times as long as I had anticipated, but that also included updating my address book and fighting with the local store’s online uploading instrument. Here’s an outtake…
But, we’ve started the season officially. The advent calendars were broken out on Saturday and the girls have been thrilled with their little chocolates every morning. The older two love helping Baby find the correct day on hers. We’ve pulled out the book that I have been waiting for this month to read, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I loved this book when I was a kid and found it earlier this year, I think it was at the library’s used book sale. We’ve gotten two chapters into it and Bubba and Mimi were both listening intently. It’s a pretty short book, though, so I imagine that we’ll be through it soon.
I believe that all of our math will be about fractions this month, well, fractions and measuring. I plan on doing quite a bit of cooking with the girls. Because some people on the receiving end of these gifts do read here, I can’t lay out my plans, but it involves yummy candy and cookies. I would like to break out my lefse griddle and whip up a batch because I absolutely adore the stuff. Unfortunately, it’s really time consuming and I’m not sure I will be able to squeeze it in. That may have to be a project for the new year.
We’re going to be discussing all of the different holidays that happen this month, even Pearl Harbor Day. I don’t know that we’ll get terribly in depth on any of them unless one sparks her interest, but we’ll go over their main points. I think we’re also going to do a crash course in table manners and etiquette that she can show off at our holiday dinners.
The whole weather unit was a bit of a bust. It didn’t interest her the way she thought it would, so we finally just returned the books. Maybe in the spring when we are constantly under a tornado warning she’ll have some more interest in the clouds and such.
We spent a long drive home in the car singing all of the Christmas carols that we could remember (and butchering the ones that we were a little fuzzy on). Pretty soon they’ll print a map in the paper of all of the highly decorated neighborhoods and we’ll load up on hot chocolates with whipped cream and cruise around looking at the lights. We did it last year and hope to continue the tradition from now on.
